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Received: 24 August 2016    Accepted: 27 February 2017 DOI: 10.1111/aji.12678

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Leukocyte counts and lymphocyte subsets in relation to pregnancy and HIV infection in Malawian women Wilson L. Mandala1,2,3  | Esther N. Gondwe1,3 | Malcolm E. Molyneux1,3 |  Jenny M. MacLennan1,4 | Calman A. MacLennan1,5,6 1

Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, College of Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi 2

Problem: We investigated leukocyte and lymphocyte subsets in HIV-­infected or HIV-­ uninfected, pregnant or non-­pregnant Malawian women to explore whether HIV in-

Department of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi

fection and pregnancy may act synergistically to impair cellular immunity.

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women and 24 pregnant and 20 non-­pregnant HIV-­infected Malawian women. We

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK 4

Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 5 The Jenner Institute, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 6

Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, College of Medicine and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Method of study: We recruited 54 pregnant and 48 non-­pregnant HIV-­uninfected compared peripheral blood leukocyte and lymphocyte subsets between women in the four groups. Results: Parturient HIV-­infected and HIV-­uninfected women had more neutrophils (each P